Tony Blair met with recently re-elected French president, Jacques Chirac, on Wednesday night where he pressed the case for greater French co-operation over immigration and asylum.

Over recent months, British ministers have been angered at what they see as the French passing the buck on illegal immigrantion.

Blair used the meeting to give a frank assessment of the current asylum crisis and called on the French administration to toughen up its own policy.

Ministers have been incensed at the French government's failure to adequately police freight terminals near Calais and have demanded the closure of the Sangatte refugee camp close to the entrance to the channel tunnel.

Downing Street had earlier said that the meeting would "range freely across a wide range of issues" including the Sangatte camp.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said the talks would be "constructive" - but expressed doubt that the meeting would produce a "settled text" on Sangatte.

"We are pleased about the constructive approaches which we have perceived from the new French government. Europe is in this together. We want a commitment from France to work with us to resolve these problems," he told the Today programme.

Speaking on Monday, the home secretary, David Blunkett, said he hoped that the new right-wing coalition government elected in France last weekend would toughen its approach.

Blunkett expressed anger at the on-going failure of the French authorities to do all in their power to clamp-down on the refugee crisis.

He called on the French government to install new screening technology in Calais to prevent illegal immigrants making the journey across the channel.

Later this week Tony Blair will call on EU ministers to back British plans which would see asylum seekers returned to their country of origin, or the last safe country through which they travelled, whilst their cases were assessed.

British sources say the new approach would stop the French immigration authorities turning a blind eye to thousands of immigrants who travel through the country on their way to Britain.

France, however, is leading a revolt over Britain's asylum plans - rejecting suggestions that EU development aid should withdrawn from countries who fail to take back failed asylum seekers.

The French have argued that the only long-term solution involves increasing aid to tackle the underlying reasons forcing people to leave the developing world in pursuit of a better life in the EU.

Britain is also calling for other EU countries to toughen up the union's external borders. British ministers have let it be known that many countries which act as transit routes for illegal immigrants do not do enough to prevent them entering the EU in the first place.

The row over the EU's future asylum and immigration policy will come to a head on Friday when EU leaders gather in Seville for the latest summit.

France, Luxembourg and Sweden have already signalled that they are unwilling to support Britain's calls for EU aid to be linked to asylum policy although Blair's aides hope that he will be able to use tonight's meeting to persuade Chirac to back the UK's asylum blueprint.

Following the meeting it was announced that the president has ordered an inquiry into the safety of British beef.

The announcement followed a discussion over France's on-going ban on the import of beef from the UK.